Major League owners approved a proposal Monday for how to start the 2020 season which includes an 82-game season, a National League designated hitter, expanded rosters, more playoff teams and revenue sharing.
However, MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark told Ken Rosenthal that any plan with revenue sharing is a "non-starter."
Ronald Blum of the Associated Press was first with the report.
The plan will now be submitted to the Players Association, who will also have to approve it to finally get the 2020 season underway.
Owners are offering a 50-50 split of 2020's regular and postseason revenues. The Players' Association has long fought against revenue sharing, which is why MLB does not have a salary cap.
Owners have not proposed a salary cap since the 1994-1995 player's strike that resulted in the cancellation of the 1994 World Series. Teams are operating at a loss right now, and they will lose most --if not all -- of their ticket gate income in 2020, and owners have advocated for players to take a pay cut to help offset the cost.
“That the league is trying to take advantage of a global health crisis to get what they’ve failed to achieve in the past — and to anonymously negotiate through the media for the last several days — suggests they know exactly how this will be received," Clark told Rosenthal.
The Players Association already agreed to a pay reduction for 2020 as part of a deal between the league and union in March.
The proposal would have teams start in their home stadium, but without fans. The hope is fans will be able to come back at some point in 2020, even if it is a limited number. Teams located in COVID-19 hot spots, like the Yankees and Mets, may need to move to their spring training facilities instead. The Blue Jays may also need to play in their spring home of Dunedin, Fla. if international travel between the United States and Canada is restricted.
Teams would play just their respective division and the teams in the same division in the opposite league. That means the Pirates would only play against the Cardinals, Cubs, Reds, Brewers, Tigers, Indians, Twins, White Sox and Royals.
Spring training would resume in mid-June and would last about three weeks. Teams would be allowed to return to their spring training homes or have them in their home ballparks. The advantage of returning to Florida or Arizona is there are more facilities available.
“We can definitely figure [it] out,” Derek Shelton said in a conference call last week about possibly hosting spring training at PNC Park. “However we were gonna do it, wherever we’re at, we would be able to figure out and facilitate a schedule that would work.”
The regular season would begin around the 4th of July. To compensate for the shorter ramp up time, rosters will be expanded from 26 to 30 players.
The National League would also adopt the DH for the 2020 season, though it does not appear that it would be implemented permanently. The league and union's collective bargaining agreement is set to expire after the 2021 season. A universal DH could be a part of that next CBA.
MLB had previously considered a plan to expand the playoff field to 14 teams, adding two more wild cards, but it came with other provisions. In the original proposal, the top seed in each league would get a bye to the divisional round, while the other two division winners would end up selecting which wild card team they would want to play in a best of three series.
It's not known how MLB would structure the playoffs or if that proposal is even being considered.
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